


Like A Thief

by justdk



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Multi, Sexual Content, Suicidal Thoughts, dubcon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2018-11-23 13:19:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11403246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justdk/pseuds/justdk
Summary: The Second Life of Joseph Kavinsky





	1. Chapter 1

_Wake up_.

For a disoriented moment Kavinsky thought it was his mother calling to him but then he remembered that she hadn’t bothered to wake him in years. And the voice was wrong. Too cold, too… emotionless.

 _Wake up_.

He struggled to comply but his eyes refused to open. He felt locked behind his eyelids, caught in his skull, in his body, in his thoughts. _Oh god. Oh fuck_. _Trapped_. The panic was stronger than his body’s resistance, he could feel something inside him breaking lose, it was like fighting his way out of restraints. ( _Been there, done that_ ).

_Wake up._

His eyes opened. White light so bright he immediately shut his eyes again, felt tears stinging at the corners of his eyelids.

“He’s coming around.”

The voice was clinical and dispassionate. He heard the beeps of a machine, the quiet shifting of fabric and feet scuffing. Something cold and round touched his chest. His eyes flew open again.

A young man was leaning over him, wearing black scrubs and a black medical mask, his gloved hand—also black—pressed a stethoscope to his chest. Kavinsky couldn’t tell if the man was smiling or frowning behind the mask. His dark eyes were calm, his eyebrows placid and impassive. Kavinsky noticed a line of ragged, red scarring on the man’s throat, right below his Adam’s apple, stretching almost from ear to ear. It was a wonder the man had survived the trauma.

“Welcome back.”

It wasn’t the man who spoke, the mask didn’t move and the voice was too feminine. Kavinsky craned his neck, feeling oddly weak and strained as he did so. A petite Korean woman in a white suit stood at the edge of the room, her body silhouetted by a wide window. Her hair was pulled back and there was something about her that was familiar but Kavinsky couldn’t put his finger on it. Despite her words her tone did not suggest that she was either pleased or displeased that Kavinsky was awake. And what did she mean, _welcome back_?

The young man removed the stethoscope and then proceeded to take Kavinsky’s blood pressure. His movements were precise and his expression never shifted, and he never said a word. His silence and stillness were unnerving. He leaned closer to Kavinsky’s face and, without asking, reached out to pull back his eyelids and shine a light at K’s eyes.

“Dude! The fuck—” Kavinsky tried to slap his hands away, but his arms felt unbearably heavy and feeble.

“Try not to move so quickly,” the woman said. She didn’t raise her voice or show any particular feeling for K’s outburst. “You have been in coma for nearly a year. Your body needs time to recover its strength.”

Kavinsky ignored the man who was still trying to complete his examination.

“I beg your fucking pardon?” Kavinsky snarled. If he had felt up to yelling he would have.

“Tell me, what is the last thing you remember doing?” The woman paced forward, standing next to the bed so that Kavinsky didn’t have to strain his neck to see her. She had her arms folded across her abdomen, small hands gripping her elbows. Kavinsky noticed, in a detached manner, that she wore no jewelry or makeup. He couldn’t begin to guess her age; she could be anywhere from late twenties to early fifties.

“I remember…” Kavinsky closed his eyes, even though doing so made his heart trip. _What if I can’t open them again? What if this is another dream?_ “I remember… dreams. I’ve been dreaming about… everything.” That was a lie.

“Before you went into coma, do you remember what you were doing?”

His dreams, if they had been dreams, now felt like an endless loop of some of the most memorable moments from his life. Not surprisingly, most of them had been horrific. Death. And fire. Kavinsky shuddered, feeling cold all the way to his core.

“It was the fourth of July…” he struggled to pull the memory to the surface. It felt so shrouded by his dreams, by all the permutations of what might have been if… it was like he had lived every single outcome, chasing a better ending but always being returned to the beginning of the cycle. Again and again and again.

“Yes,” the woman said. Her dark eyes bore down on him.

“I took Matthew.” Kavinsky swallowed, his throat dry, his mouth dry. The young man held a glass of water with a straw next to him and Kavinsky allowed the man to put the straw in his mouth. He drank thirstily, draining half the glass before he took a breath. “Ronan came. I wouldn’t tell him where Matthew was, I made him look.”

It was all coming back in vivid detail. The oppressive heat, that heavy feeling in the air like a storm was brewing, about to burst. The storm had been fulminating for months and K had been on edge, all of Henrietta on edge as _something_ flared and hissed underneath the town. He would wake in the middle of the night, bolt upright from dreams so powerful and uncontrollable that he thought he would die. He had taken Matthew. Fixated on Ronan, obsessed, continually rejected. _Ronan Fucking Lynch_. They were two of a kind, they should have been together and yet…

“We fought,” Kavinsky said, his voice low and deadened by the weight of the memory. “I dreamed a dragon, he dreamed a… something disturbing as fuck. A night horror. They battled.” There had been fire and cars, so many white Mitsubishis, music as loud and violent as he could make it. All those faceless people and Ronan’s frantic friends racing from car to car while Matthew was curled up like a present in the truck of Kavinsky’s car, so close that he had wanted to laugh and jump up and down on the trunk because Ronan didn’t know. _He didn’t know_.

“How did it end?” the woman asked.

“I…” Kavinsky trailed off. He remembered stepping from reality to dream, meeting Ronan there. The words of their final argument replayed in his mind. He saw Ronan’s pleading, desperate face. _Rejection_. A final rejection and then—“I let the dragon take me.”

“You were lucky,” the woman said, her voice lightly accented and formal. Each word was uttered with a slow precision. “My son was there. He got you out.”

“Your… your _son_?” Kavinsky stared at the woman, studying her face, wracking his tired, abused memory.

“Henry.” And at last her voice displayed emotion, a warmth that lit the two vowels making them more than a name, like she was sharing her fondest secret.

“ _Henry Cheng is your son_?!” Kavinsky rasped out the words, nearly choking on his surprise. Whatever expression his face was making, the woman— _Henry’s mom_ —did not approve of because she frowned at him sternly. The young man pressed the straw back into K’s mouth, making him drink more water.

“Yes,” the woman replied. “My name is Seondeok. Perhaps you have heard of me?”

Kavinsky shook his head. He’d barely known Henry, he had stood out as the leader of the Litchfield House boys, the Vancouver Crowd, but their paths didn’t intersect. There had been that one time Henry had come to a substance party, furious, to pick up one of his friends, Kavinsky couldn’t remember the kid’s name now. There had been threats but Kavinsky had been too high at the time; he couldn’t remember what exactly had happened, what had been said. All he knew was that he had apparently made an enemy of Henry that night. It was surprising and ironic that Henry had been the one to save his life. Which made him wonder…

“What happened to Prokopenko?”

Seondeok’s face softened just a little. “He is sleeping,” she murmured. “Once you are well enough to move we will take you to him. You will be the one to wake him.”

 _She knew_. Kavinsky fought a wave of vertigo as his mind tried to fit together what she was saying, what was happening. What _was_ happening?

“You are lucky,” she said and Kavinsky forced himself to focus. “Henry was barely able to pull you free of the wreckage. We only had a bare amount of time to save you. This facility,” she waved her hands to indicate the room they were in and, by extension, the large building, or so Kavinsky assumed, “is my laboratory. I have been working for years to amass power and influence, largely from dream objects and magic.” Kavinsky stared. “You, Joseph Kavinsky, are my most recent, and most costly, acquisition.”

Seondeokpaused to let her words sink in but it was all white noise. _Acquisition_. _Dream objects. Magic_. Kavinsky felt sick, twisted up inside and, and—

“I’m gonna be sick,” he muttered. The young man scarcely had time to grab a small bucket and position it before Kavinsky threw up all the water he had drank. That’s all there was: water and bile. K dry heaved and gasped, his stomach tightening and tightening on nothing.

The young man removed the bucket and wiped off K’s mouth and chin with a tissue, then took a damp towel and patted his sweat-slicked face and neck. Kavinsky lay back on the pillows, too weak to protest, too in shock.

“What the fuck do you mean— _acquisition_?”

Seondeok’s smile was thin and sharp. “We saved your life. You owe us a life debt, two if you count your friend.”

“I didn’t ask you to save me!” Kavinsky spat, teeth bared, eyes flashing. The young man placed a hand on his chest, pressing him back onto the mattress, his eyes shot K a warning look, _be still_. Kavinsky coughed, the sound rattled in his chest.

“Don’t you think seventeen is too soon to give up?” Seondeok’s face was severe.

“You _can’t_ keep me here,” Kavinsky challenged.

Seondeok gave him a level look. “Where will you go? You are dead.”


	2. Chapter 2

Kavinsky stared up at the ceiling. The room was awful, a blank hospital-style cube that felt like a holding cell. No color, no art, nothing but his bed and the machines to monitor his recovery. He plucked at his hospital gown; they had declined to give him proper clothes or boxers. True, he didn’t have many qualms about nudity but there was something humiliating about being stuck in a hospital gown. And it wasn’t sexy at all.

The morning’s conversation – interrogation? lecture? ultimatum? – kept replaying in his head. It wasn’t fair, Seondeok springing it all on him at once. _Oh hi you’re awake. Did you know you’re legally dead? Did you know that you’re my bitch until I say otherwise?_ It was an impossible situation and it reminded him too much of what it was like before… before Aglionby, back in Jersey. He didn’t know Seondeok, had barely known Henry Cheng, and he had no idea what to expect if he didn’t cooperate. Would he be locked up forever? Disposed of? And then there was the other thing Seondeok had said, it made him feel sick remembering…

 _How did you know about me?_ Kavinsky had asked. His head was spinning and he was starting to feel nauseated. The doctor, Jin, had given him a shot of something that made him feel sleepy. The room started to blur and he blinked several times, trying to hold onto consciousness. He wasn’t ready to sleep again.

 _Niall Lynch wasn’t the best at keeping secrets_. Seondeok didn’t smile when she said those words, her face and tone betrayed no emotion and yet the words shot through Kavinsky like a bullet. _Niall Lynch wasn’t the best at keeping secrets_.

Now that Kavinsky was awake again and felt well enough to think he considered those words. The Niall Lynch he had known, and he had known Niall since before he came to Aglionby, knew the power of a secret. There was no fucking way that Niall had told anyone, let alone someone like Seondeok, about him. And yet, Niall was also a shameless bragger who had been murdered by someone connected to the dream business. (K had spent months trying to figure out who was responsible but he didn’t know enough and he felt bound by Niall’s instructions: _don’t go looking for dream traffickers_ ). It was entirely possible that Niall had accidentally said something or that he hadn’t been as clever as he thought he was when he had spirited Kavinsky and his mother away to Henrietta.

Kavinsky figured that Seondeok was talking shit. Niall didn’t give him up. If anyone was to blame it was himself; after Niall’s death he had gone a little crazy. Okay, very crazy. He hadn’t been subtle, hadn’t been careful. He had dreamed recklessly and lavishly. When he wasn’t dreaming he was usually high and/or drunk and that didn’t lend itself to careful observation or self-preservation. If there were people looking around Henrietta after Niall’s death and they were looking for dreamers, well, he was surprised that he hadn’t been found out sooner. ( _And yes okay the dragon was a fucking giveaway but shit he had been out of his mind_ ).

Then there was all the shit with Ronan. K hadn’t been awake and aware long enough to really process it but every time his thoughts brushed against their last encounter he felt a painful stab of regret. His mind had had a year to torment him with a replay of his worst moments and Kavinsky couldn’t think of a rehab treatment that was anywhere near as effective. Just thinking about Ronan made him want to tear his insides out. He had fucked that up royally, broke faith with Niall on that, too. _Keep clear of my boys, especially Ronan. The world can’t withstand the two of you together._ But what was more attractive to a dreamer than another dreamer? And without Niall around to keep him out of trouble, well, it was inevitable that he and Ronan would meet.

Of course, he hadn’t planned for it to end the way it did. No, he actually had exerted a lot of self-control, waiting and watching. Ronan was grieving and self-destructive, much like Kavinsky. Too soon and he knew he would scare Ronan away. So he waited. And he dreamed and thought and planned his seduction so carefully. Leather bands: _I see you. I know you_. Useless fake IDs: _I know what you want_. The drag races, the parties. It was all to bring Ronan closer. And then it finally happened: a glorious crash of Gansey’s Camaro and Ronan’s nightmares. At last Ronan _needed_ him. At last Ronan was _desperate_.

It should have worked. Kavinsky had truly believed that it would work. Ronan would see that they were the same; he would understand what they could be together. Wasn’t he tired of Gansey holding him back? Wasn’t he tired of other people telling him what to do and how to behave? They could have the world: burn it down and rebuild it, shout _fuck this shit_ on the ashes and create something better. But all Ronan wanted was the Camaro and Gansey and his stupid, small life. It didn’t make sense. None of the Lynches made sense, hiding on a farm? When they were _gods_? What was the fucking point?

He thought about that last, despairing gift, the dreamed Evo, a twin to his own car. He had known that Ronan lusted after the car, had hoped some of that longing would transfer to him. But Ronan ignored that, too. Ignored the texts, the calls ( _fuck so needy so embarrassing_ ). Kavinsky cringed, remembering the tortured, red-hot ache and pull that had consumed him until he realized that it was all hopeless and pointless and Ronan would never want him, no one really wanted him. He was a dreamer rejected and alone, all the power of a god but powerless to have the one thing he wanted ( _was that really Ronan? was it Niall? was it just someone who could look him in the eyes and_ know _him and accept him?_ ).

With a start Kavinsky realized that he had been shredding his bed sheets and crying. Which was… not cool. He had also bitten through his lower lip and blood seeped in his mouth, tickled the back of his throat. He swallowed hard and gave the sheets one more long, satisfying tear. He needed to get high. He needed to escape. He hadn’t been this fucking sober in… a lifetime. It was disgusting, the way all the thoughts and feelings encroached, making it impossible to get away. Kavinsky had bottled up the trauma of what happened in Jersey, and he had snorted away the pain of Niall’s death, but it was Ronan Lynch who had proved to be the final nail in the coffin. Well, fuck that guy, Kavinsky wasn’t about to let Ronan ruin his afterlife. No, he needed some powder, then a plan, and Prokopenko.

He managed to swing his legs over the side of the bed (surprisingly difficult to do with all the wires coming out of him) and get his feet on the floor. He already felt winded which was ridiculous. He coughed a couple times and it sounded awful.

“C’mon you fucker,” he mumbled to himself. “You got this.”

He braced his hands on the mattress, arms trembling, and leveraged himself to his feet. And promptly collapsed onto the tiles.

“Son of bitch!” he yelped. The floor was cold, icy cold. As he lay there, feeling the pain of the needles pulling in his arms and legs, the wires wrapped around him, he finally realized what a wreck he was. His arms and legs, always scrawny, now looked like limp noodles, the muscles had atrophied and he felt weak all over. Kavinsky closed his eyes and listened to the racket the machines were making: alarmed beeps and shrill alerts. He listened for the quick sound of approaching footsteps, two sets: one quiet and slippered, the other precise and sharp.

The door swung open revealing two men, Jin and a stranger. Kavinsky’s attention focused on Jin who knelt down beside him and gently pulled Kavinsky into his arms.

“Ow,” Kavinsky complained, one of the needles jabbing into his wrist from where his arm was trapped against Jin’s body. Jin, of course, didn’t make a sound but he did look concerned. He got Kavinsky settled on the bed and did a quick check up, adjusting needles and all kinds of weird medical shit that Kavinsky didn’t have a name for.

The stranger hung back, observing everything with intense interest. There was something about him that seemed familiar, that tugged at Kavinsky’s memories. They hadn’t met, he was sure of that, but he had seen him somewhere.

His first impression of the man was embarrassingly direct, his eyes relayed the message to his brain in record time: _10/10 would fuck_ and also _danger danger danger_. The man was taller than him, probably around 6’3”, with the build of someone who could run a marathon and then kick your ass once he crossed the finish line. He looked like an action hero, like Daniel Craig style 007 with his short, light blond hair that bordered on ash grey. _Ash grey?_ Kavinsky blinked, tried to shake off the feeling that was making his heart race, the machine betraying him in the spikes and valleys moving across the screen. Jin tapped at the screen and gave K a knowing look that K responded to with a surly frown.

The man leaned against the wall, thumbs hooked into the pockets of his slacks. He could be a fucking male model, all neatly pressed and tucked in. Even the scruff on his face had that $500 cologne ad suave look. But his eyes: gunmetal grey, cold, and glinting. His eyes said _I’m smarter than you_. He probably was.

Jin stepped away from the bed and nodded to the stranger. The man prowled forward. K tracked his every move, feeling like a mouse pinned beneath the stare of a rattlesnake.

The man leaned in and stared right into Kavinsky’s eyes. His lips quirked up in an unamused smile. His voice was low, almost a whisper, “You look like shit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I created a Kavinsky playlist a few weeks ago if you want to check it out:  
> https://8tracks.com/justdk/kavinsky-lives


	3. Chapter 3

Blushing was something that other people did; it was something that Kavinsky made other people do, either by the force of his direct stare or the words he used, filthy, obscene, and provocative. _He_ didn’t get flustered. _He_ didn’t lose his cool.

He was losing his cool. It was lost.

His face was burning and his heart was racing, his palms sweating. He hadn’t been this bothered by anyone in a long time. The last time he had been this keyed up was with Ronan, when they dreamed and slept in his Mitsubishi, the summer heat making them both languid and sweaty, torsos gleaming and shirtless…

The man sat on the edge of Kavinsky’s bed, his hands resting over his knees, his posture relaxed and ready at the same time. He was watching Kavinsky like he was expecting him to perform a trick. K swallowed and tried sitting up but he couldn’t move, not with his body rebelling against him and the stranger’s weight pulling the cover down tight across his legs.

Kavinsky started to say something, a smart ass reply to the man’s “ _You look like shit_ ” greeting, but he ended up coughing instead, hard enough that his stomach hurt. The man watched but didn’t make a move to help. Jin brought over water for K and gave him a cough drop that tasted like menthol. K rolled the drop around in his mouth, sucking on it before stashing it in his cheek, which gave him an idea… Kavinsky sent the stranger a seductive wink and hollowed out his cheeks, poking his tongue against his cheek a couple times, and waggling his eyebrows for maximum effect.

The man looked unimpressed.

“I said you looked like shit and your response is what? A juvenile come on?” The man asked. He sounded bored. And, because Kavinsky was a contrary shit, it only served to make the stranger more attractive.

“Blow jobs are hardly juvenile,” Kavinsky replied. He sucked the cough drop to the other side of his mouth. “Besides, have you ever gotten one with a cough drop?” The man rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Me neither. C’mon, first time for everything.”

Jin smacked the side of Kavinsky’s bed and shook his head. He was scowling and his ears were pink with embarrassment. Kavinsky felt pleased that at least his words were bothering someone, even if it wasn’t his desired target.

“Or maybe not. Looks like doc is saying blow jobs are a no go right now.” Kavinsky shrugged carelessly and bit the cough drop into pieces, crunching them as loudly as possible.

The man gave Kavinsky a critical look. It was a look Kavinsky was used to, having seen it on the faces of most of his Aglionby teachers. “I would say that I’m shocked by your behavior – propositioning a complete stranger – but I’m not,” the man said. “You come as advertised.”

“I do,” Kavinsky said with a smirk, “ _come_ as advertised. I haven’t for a long time though. A year, wasn’t it, Jin?” Jin flushed and turned away, poking at the machines next to Kavinsky’s bed. Kavinsky leveled his gaze on the stranger, quietly impressed that the man was still so unfazed by him. Kavinsky thrived on making people uncomfortable; apparently he was going to have to try harder. “So who the fuck are you?” he asked.

“Finally,” the man muttered. He braced one hand on the mattress, near Kavinsky’s knee, and leaned forward. “You can call me Mr. Gray.”

“Oh, can I?” Kavinsky laughed. “I sure as shit lucked out in this life. I die and one of the first people I meet is a romance novel sex god. Lucky me.”

Mr. Gray frowned and cocked his head to the side. “I don’t follow. And I’m not a sex god.”

“Don’t be so modest,” K patted Mr. Gray’s hand. “Also, where the fuck have you been? _Fifty Shades of Grey_? BDSM erotica for the thirsty?” Mr. Gray shook his head. “That’s okay, man, we’ll watch the movie. Probably better than the book.”

Mr. Gray pulled his hand away from Kavinsky and rubbed the back on his neck. It was a tired, world weary gesture, one that Niall would pull after hours of trying to get Kavinsky to understand the fundamentals of dreaming. The comparison made K’s heart hurt.

“We’re getting off track,” Mr. Gray sighed. “Let’s try this again. I work with Seondeok. You work _for_ Seondeok. As of today we’re partners.” Mr. Gray couldn’t have sounded less enthusiastic about their partnership if he tried but that didn’t stop the instant burst of glee that shot through him.

“Partners? Did my life get rewritten as a buddy cop sitcom? Or are you trying to propose? Because I have to say, I do like you but monogamy is not my bag.” Jin made a choking noise that K figured might have been a laugh. He signed something to Mr. Gray and left the room, shutting the door behind him.

Mr. Gray got up and leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. “I see that I need to clarify a few things,” he began. “Just so we’re straight—” Kavinsky snorted and Mr. Gray glared at him. “I have a significant other. I am not interested in teen boys. I am not interested in you. I will _never_ be interested in you. Please understand that or we’ll have a difficult time working together.”

“Buzzkill,” Kavinsky grumbled. He pulled himself up into a sitting position, his arms shaking, his head heavy and unwieldy. “To quote that bitchy Canadian boy, _Never say never,_ bro. But I’ll take your words into consideration, _Mr. Gray_. Continue.”

Mr. Gray pressed his forehead against his palm. Another Niall gesture. “As I was saying, we’ll be working together. Seondeok and I are anxious to bring order to the dream market. You were asleep for most of the drama so I think it’s best to catch you up before explaining what type of work we’ll be doing.”

“Great,” Kavinsky nodded. “Can I get a drink first? Preferably vodka. But I’ll take just about anything at this point. I’m thirsty as fuck.”

“No, you can’t have alcohol. You’re eighteen, not twenty-one. Also, your liver is shit. Even one year being clean isn’t enough to get rid of the damage.”

K waved his hand dismissively. “Haven’t you heard? I’m a dreamer, sweetheart. If I need a new liver or kidney or fuck all I’ll just dream one. Then Doctor Jin Medicine Man can pop it in and I’ll be good as new.” Kavinsky smiled, sharp as a shark, a real Ronan Lynch smile. “Is that what we’ll be doing, huh? Dream trafficking? Black market organs and designer drugs? Art forgeries and documents? Please, please, please tell me that’s what we’ll be doing. I can’t stand anymore _stay at home and be good_ shit.”

Mr. Gray’s laugh was short, more an outburst of surprise than amusement. “ _Be good_? When were you ever good? According to all sources you, Joseph Kavinsky, were the worst.”

Kavinsky frowned, his nose scrunched up. “I was good for Niall.” He sounded whiny, like a kid, and he sounded sad. He looked away from Mr. Gray and tore at his shredded sheets.

“Oh.” Mr. Gray whispered. “Niall Lynch.”

The name settled between them like a weight. Kavinsky had stopped fixating on Niall and his death around the same time that he had started obsessing about Ronan but he had never forgotten. Every day he remembered what Niall Lynch had done for him and every day he had tried to drown out the anger and hurt that came from in living in a world where Niall was dead and his killer was a free man.

“Did you…” Kavinsky cleared his throat and tried again. “Did you know him?”

Mr. Gray scuffed his foot against the tiled floor. “Only a little. I know his sons better. I’ve been working with Ronan and Declan for nearly a year.”

Kavinsky slumped back on his pillows. It would figure that his new life wouldn’t be a clean break from the old. “Yeah? Can I see him? Does he know?” Even as he asked Kavinsky wasn’t sure if he really wanted to see Ronan. He should apologize to him at least… he would rather take another yearlong nap first.

“Ronan? No, he doesn’t know about you. Declan does, but we’ve all agreed that Ronan doesn’t need to know. He’s happy now, Joseph. He deserves a little peace.”

Kavinsky ripped the sheets some more. “That’s fucking peachy.” His head hurt, his entire body ached like he was coming down with the flu, he barely managed to stifle a pained moan and plucked at his IV. “Does this thing come in morphine? I feel like I’m dying.”

Mr. Gray sighed again. “Do you always complain this much?”

Kavinsky, good humor officially gone, glared at him. “Yes.”

“I’ll see if I can get you something. Be right back.”

Mr. Gray ducked out the room and Kavinsky shut his eyes and listened to the machines beep. A year ago… a year ago… He dug his knuckles into his dry eyes until he felt the prick of moisture in the corners. A year ago he had kidnapped Niall’s youngest son, held him hostage and waited for his other boy to come save him – not Matthew – _him_. A year ago he would have preferred to see the world burn rather than live one more empty, soulless, chaotic day longing for something he couldn’t have. He had nearly destroyed Niall’s family, piece by piece. Did he really deserve this second chance? Would working for Seondeok be proper penance for his sins? And what about Mr. Gray? How did he factor into this shit show?

The door clicked open and Jin came in, followed by Mr. Gray. Jin fussed with the IV and then pressed some buttons on a machine. Jin pointed at his watch and held up three fingers then formed a zero. K nodded wearily. Mr. Gray brought in a rolling chair and mug of coffee. He settled in next to K’s bed, his right ankle resting on his left knee. For a moment he looked like professor, like he should be grading papers.

Mr. Gray sipped his coffee as if he had all the time in the world. Maybe he did but Kavinsky was getting impatient. He shifted, trying to get comfortable.

“So tell me what I missed,” Kavinsky demanded.

Mr. Gray rested his mug on his knee and tapped at his lips thoughtfully. “It’s a long story,” he began.

Kavinsky listened, transfixed, as Mr. Gray spun an incredible story featuring K’s old classmates, mastermind criminals, psychics, hitmen, magic, and a demon. K was smart enough to pick up that he wasn’t getting the full story, not by a long shot. Mr. Gray had condensed his narrative to matters relating specifically to dreams and dreamers. He hinted at other quests, tangled side stories and drama, but he never got too sidetracked, no matter how often Kavinsky interrupted to ask for more details.

“In the end,” Mr. Gray concluded, “you could say that all of this stemmed from one man and his greed. Colin Greenmantle upset the balance within the dream trade. Colin and the demon. If Piper had never come to Henrietta would the demon have been awoken?” Kavinsky got the feeling that Mr. Gray wasn’t asking him, that these were questions he had pondered time and again without finding a satisfying answer. He stared into his empty coffee mug and the moment spun out.

“So what you’re saying,” Kavinsky said, “is that Greenmantle had Niall killed which fucked the order of things and now that the Greenmantles are dead no one knows what the hell is going on?”

“Essentially,” Mr. Gray nodded.

“I don’t see how I’m supposed to help.”

“You and I will be reestablishing order. Out of the original buyers only Seondeok knows where the items really come from. There is a demand for the rare and the strange and the new. You, of course, will be the supply to the demand. I am the go-between. I consult with buyers and collectors. I am trying to establish a civilized process, to make this a business instead of what it’s become: assassinations, kidnapping, blackmail, robbery.”

“Sounds fucking boring,” K replied. The morphine had kicked in a while ago and he felt exhausted. Everything that Mr. Gray had told him was too overwhelming, too much to process all at once. “I’m just—what? Sitting around here taking orders and dreaming shit? Print on demand?”

“Not quite. Assuming your recovery goes as planned – and if you can behave – you’ll go with me.”

Kavinsky sat up at that, his pulse tripping. “ _With you_?” He couldn’t keep the incredulity out of his tone and Mr. Gray picked up on it, a sour smirk on his lips.

“Not my idea,” he explained. “Seondeok was advised that if she attempted to keep you on house arrest, even with your friend Prokopenko to keep you company, that you would revolt.”

“Advised by whom?”

“Henry and Declan, of course.”

“Pfft,” K snorted. “Those fuckers barely know me.”

“There was another classmate, what was his name. He lives with Declan now.”

Kavinsky’s hands fisted in his sheets, his heart thudding. _No way. There was no way…_

“Jiang? I think?”

“Well fuck me sideways,” K muttered. “Jiang, huh?”


	4. Chapter 4

Kavinsky didn’t remember falling asleep. One moment he was talking to Mr. Gray and the next he was dreaming of being trapped in the trunk of a car, banging his bound fists against the latch until his knuckles bled, kicking until he pulled or strained something in his legs, screaming around the gag in his mouth. He woke up gasping for breath, hands clenched tight into fists, his heart hammering with adrenaline. His mouth tasted like blood and his tongue was swollen, bitten. Cold sweat soaked his hospital gown and he shivered, feeling every bit as panicked as he had in the dream.

Jin was standing over the bed, hand out like he had been on the verge of shaking Kavinsky awake. It was a good thing that he hadn’t—after a nightmare like that Kavnisky’s reaction was to attack first and ask questions never. He eyed Jin warily, panting hard. The machines next to the bed trilled alarms.

“Fuckkkk.” Kavinsky collapsed against the pillows and pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. _It had felt so real._ Like most of his worst nightmares this one was based on memory, on his life before Henrietta. While he was at Aglionby he could chase most of the nightmares away with drugs and alcohol or running himself ragged partying or fucking. Now there was no buffer, nothing standing between him and the shit he had doggedly compartmentalized for years. He needed something familiar to distract him – no, not something – _someone_.

“Jin,” his voice came out as a croak. “Take me to Proko.”

Jin pursed his lips and frowned. His standard black face mask hung off one ear. Without it he looked younger, early twenties. Way too young to be playing doctor.

Jin pulled his phone out of the pocket of his black scrubs and typed out a message for Kavinsky: _I need approval from Seondeok. One moment_.

“Sure, whatever, man,” Kavinsky said. He was too tired to fight about it. Jin nodded and left, presumably to get approval. K stared up at the ceiling and thought about viable escape options. He hadn’t tried to bring something back from a dream since his awakening and didn’t really feel up to it. It would probably be best to try things the old fashioned way first: sneaking out, stealing a ride, heading for a remote place to hide before getting his shit together. He wondered if his mom was still living in Henrietta, if any of his dreamed cars were just lying around with all the other shit he had brought back. He could start over, far away from the Lynch brothers and Seondeok and Mr. Gray. He didn’t need to comply with their demands. He wasn’t going to be someone’s Dream Boy again.

The door opened and Jin entered, tugging a wheelchair behind him. Kavinsky wrinkled his nose when he saw it. Being bedridden was bad enough but being able to leave his bed but not under his own power was worse. Despite all of his very risky behavior he had never lost his freedom to walk or drive. Until now. Bodies were so fucking _weak_. He never had these problems in his dreams. _No_ the dark corner of his mind whispered, _in your dreams you only get hacked to pieces while—_ Kavinsky shut down that thought. Hard.

“Gotta be shitting me,” Kavinsky muttered as Jin got to work disconnecting him from the various machines, which included the very painful removal of the catheter. This involved a lot of swearing on Kavinsky’s part. Jin’s mask was back on but Kavinsky could tell that the man was scowling at him. Well, K would like to know how Jin would handle having a tube pulled out of _his_ penis. It wasn’t a fucking walk in the park. In fact, he would rather be pecked to death by a flock of hummingbirds before going through that agony again.

Once the tortuous and mortifying procedure was done Jin moved to pick K up and place him in the wheelchair.

“Dude,” Kavinsky batted Jin’s hands away, “I got this. Stand and sit. I can handle that, okay?”

Jin shook his head but took a step back. Kavinsky sat up and scooted around so that his legs were hanging off the edge of the bed. So far, so good. He moved forward some more, toes feeling for the floor. Once both feet were flat on the tiles he attempted to stand but immediately toppled into Jin’s waiting arms. He clung desperately to Jin’s back, hissing at the pain shooting through his legs.

“Motherfucker,” K gasped as Jin lowered him into the wheelchair. He looked down at his scrawny legs, glared at his quivering limbs. Jin pulled Kavinsky’s hospital gown down past his knees and draped a blanket over his legs. K dug his fingers into the soft, black fabric, willing himself not to lose it. It was so fucking _frustrating_ that he wanted to scream.

They made their way out of the room and down the hall. Jin pushed the chair slowly, his slippered feet barely making a sound on the tiled floors. The walls were white and blank, the lights overhead were stark fluorescents. It felt as sterile as an operating room, like a facility from a sci-fi movie, not reality. And it was cold and smelled like new paint. Revolting.

Proko’s room wasn’t far, only a couple rooms away. Kavinsky was still confused about why they weren’t kept in the same room; there was enough space for two beds and it would easier for Jin. Once they got there he understood why.

The door was impressively sealed, requiring not only Jin’s keycard but also a retinal scan, handprint, and a code. The door hissed open and Kavinsky saw that it – and the entire room – was built like a fortress within a castle, all to protect the boy sleeping on a pristinely made bed.

Proko wasn’t swathed beneath blankets but was laid out like a body in a morgue, or like a sleeping princess in a fairy tale. He wore white hospital scrubs, his feet bare. No machines monitored his rest though there was thick plastic casing around the bed, making him look like he was entombed in a glass coffin. Kavinsky shuddered.

To all appearances Proko might as well be dead, the only sign of life was his chest rising and falling with shallow breaths. Kavinsky realized that there were holes in the plastic barrier to allow for the flow of oxygen. An impressive bruise spread across Proko’s face, its origin his swollen nose, obviously broken. Both eyes were closed and black. No other injuries were apparent but Kavinsky still felt a hot surge of anger, looking at his dream in this battered state.

“What the fuck did you do to him?” Kavinsky growled, one hand pressed to the plastic barrier.

Jin sighed and typed a response: _Nothing. He was like this when you both were brought in. He’s not healing._ _We believe that he’s in stasis_.

“And his injuries?”

 _Sustained during a car crash_.

Kavinsky closed his eyes. He knew his dream creations were tied to his life and yet – at the moment when he let his dragon take him – he wasn’t thinking about Prokopenko or the dragon or any of it. Had he been thinking at all? As many times as he had relived that moment in his nightmares he couldn’t pinpoint what exactly flipped that final switch in him, what made him give up. Maybe it was adrenaline or despair or madness or pride. Since he couldn’t actually destroy the world he had chosen, in the heat of the moment, to destroy _a_ world— _his_. He hadn’t thought about Prokopenko.

_Do you know how to wake him?_

Kavinsky read the message and shrugged. Jin huffed out a frustrated breath, his gaze fixed on Proko’s dreaming face.

Waking a dream was not something that Niall Lynch had taught him even though Niall knew about Prokopenko. He had fucking been there that night when K – distraught and bloody – had begged for his help. He remembered Niall’s conflicted expression, the weight of his hand on K’s shoulder and those words: _Do you want to bring him back?_ It was a ridiculous question but Kavinsky had leapt at that bit of hope, nodding earnestly, tears in his eyes while Niall explained the complicated mechanics of dreaming a person, a forgery.

“If I can’t wake him,” Kavinsky said, “I’ll just make another one.”

Jin’s hand squeezed his shoulder so hard that K groaned; it felt like his bones would snap, his skin was definitely bruising. He didn’t need a typed out message to understand Jin.

“Ow!” Kavinsky yelped. “The hell, man? What about your Hippocratic oath? Do no harm? Sound fucking familiar?”

Jin eased his grip and stabbed a finger at Proko’s protective case.

“Yeah, okay, I’ll try. Don’t see why you care. He’s not even human.”

Jin’s eyes burned with anger and he furiously typed a message: _Neither are you_.

Kavinsky let those words sink in. It wasn’t the first time someone had called him inhuman.

“You’re right,” he admitted. “I’m not human.” He smiled widely, staring up into Jin’s dark eyes. “I’m better.”


	5. Chapter 5

Despite his initial eagerness to see Prokopenko, Kavinsky was unwilling to wake him. He sat by the plastic case – which was more like a casket – keeping vigil, studying the black and purple bruise that stained Proko’s face, staring hard at his swollen eyelids and split lip. He had killed Ilya Prokopenko once – it had been an  _accident_ – and he wasn’t sure if he should drag him back to life, again. Wasn’t it better for him to just…fade from existence?

The problem was that Prokopenko would never fade, not while Kavinsky still lived, and even after he died it was dubious territory. Niall Lynch was the only dreamer Kavinsky had known, other than Ronan, and Niall’s dreamed creations had continued to exist after his murder. Not _live_ , just exist, like computers that had reverted to hibernation mode from lack of use, waiting until someone turned them on. Kavinsky tapped his fingers against the case and smirked. Yes, that was sort of the point of Proko, wasn’t it? His own toy, to be turned on and off at will, a lackey who never tried to overtake him, who never questioned him, who always said _yes_ , who always did what he was told.

But that wasn’t the case for Niall’s Aurora or Ronan’s Matthew, maybe because they weren’t forgeries of someone who had once been real. They were their own, unique. Kavinsky had never met Aurora, Niall being excessively protective of both his family and his home, but he had known Matthew. Sweet little Matthew Lynch. Matthew had been ridiculously easy to kidnap, like snatching a clueless puppy from someone’s yard. Matthew hadn’t put up a fight when Kavinsky had asked him to get in his car; all Kavinsky had to say was the magic word – _Ronan_ – and Matthew came. Way too easy.

Okay, so maybe Matthew Lynch didn’t have as much autonomy as Kavinsky gave him credit for. Taking him had been like suggesting something to someone who had undergone hypnotism; he just went along and then looked so _wounded_ when Kavinsky shut him in the trunk. _“Where’s Ronan?”_ he had asked, though he still didn’t have the good sense to be afraid. At that moment Kavinsky was pretty sure he hated Matthew, if only because looking at his innocent face was like seeing into a mirror that reflected back his own sick obsession and emptiness. _“On his way,”_ Kavinsky had promised. And then he had slammed the lid down.

Kavinsky rubbed at his dry eyes and returned to the problem in front of him: waking Prokopenko. He had a feeling it would be as easy as touching his creation, an invisible force connecting the two of them snapping into place. Maybe he would kiss Proko awake, just to fuck with Jin who was acting overly interested in _his_ Proko. Still… Proko awake was a different kind of liability and responsibility than a comatose Proko.

Jin came around into Kavinsky’s field of vision and held out his phone, a new message on the screen: _What’s the hold up? Do you need anything?_

Kavinsky eyed Jin, trying to figure him out. He was young, good looking. The scars on his throat where more a point of interest than a turn off. His silence was a plus, too. But god those eyes… there was so much anger there and Kavinsky felt that an unfair amount was directed at him, especially when he had never done a single thing to the man.

“I’m good,” Kavinsky said. He leaned back in the wheelchair and drummed his fingers on the wheels. God, it was fucking difficult to be intimidating when he couldn’t stand. “Tell me, _Jin_ , what’s your interest in all this? I get that you work for Seondeok but come on, you’re way too invested in my little experiment.”

He was fairly certain that Jin was under orders not to hurt him but if looks could kill, well, he’d be dead. Jin typed furiously on his phone and showed it to K.

_I’m not interested. This is my job._

“Yeah, okay.” Kavinsky rolled his eyes. “See, I think you’ve got this fascination with my boy.” He tapped at the case, noting how the action made Jin wince. “Does he remind you of someone? Or are you the hero type, always trying to save the damsel in distress? Is that what happened to your throat, huh?” Kavinsky made an exaggerated throat-slashing gesture. “Got too caught up in someone else’s business?”

Jin’s glare got, amazingly, even more severe, his lips pressed together so tight that they nearly disappeared. Kavinsky wanted to say _Cat got your tongue?_ but he was already treading the line of cliché movie villain. Better save it for another opportunity, preferably when he had more of an audience.

_As I said, this is my job. The sooner you wake him the sooner the both of you are out of my life. Or do you think that I’ve loved being tied to you and him for nearly a year?_

Kavinsky squinted as he read the text. Jin’s expression didn’t change.

“Huh,” K grunted. “Well, I’m calling bullshit but whatever helps you sleep at night, princess.”

Jin threw up his hands and turned away, pacing to the door and back, his footfalls as silent as ever. Kavinsky was pretty sure he wasn’t going to get any real information out of him. He would just have to wait until the irresistible and mysterious Mr. Gray returned. For some reason thinking about his new partner made him want to try to wake Proko, to show him that he wasn’t incompetent. After all, if it proved that he could no longer take things from dreams, which, god what a nightmare, there would be no reason for the two of them to remain associates. No reason for Seondeok to keep him and Proko alive. Not that he would mind dying, even after having several days to rethink his decisions he didn’t regret that part, not really.

He placed his hand on the case again, this time staring at his reflection and not Proko. He hadn’t seen himself since waking up, hadn’t been given a mirror. All he had to go on was Mr. Gray’s assessment that he ‘looked like shit’ and his own inventory of his wasted body. His face though…

He looked hollowed out, his eyes sunk in shadows, his cheekbones too sharp beneath his skin but the real change – the part that made him recoil from his reflection – was his hair. It had been cropped short, nearly a buzzcut, which was _not_ a good look for him, but more than that—

“What the ever living fuck?!” he gasped, his short nails digging into his scalp. “Did you dye my hair?”

Jin rolled his eyes and that was enough of an answer. Of course they hadn’t. Why would they?

Kavinsky leaned in closer, brushing his hands over the short, spiky hairs. How could he have gone days and not realized it was this short, practically gone? He blinked but his reflection stayed the same: an emaciated face topped by a fuzz of snow-white hair. It was jarring, like looking at a skeletal version of himself.

Back from the dead and he looked it.

“Ugh!” he groaned, knowing he was overreacting and not caring. “Is this permanent, man? Like, how long has this shit been going on? Because July 4th, I had black hair and it like this long.” He held out his fingers to demonstrate the length.

 _It was black when they brought you in_ , Jin typed, _but it faded over time_. _It’s been like that for nearly ten months_.

“Here, lemme see your phone,” Kavinsky demanded, reaching out for the device. Jin held it to his chest and shook his head. “Oh for fu—look, I wanna see what I look like. Take a picture or put it on selfie mode and let me see.”

Jin’s sigh was visible if inaudible. He tapped at his phone a few times and then held the screen in front of Kavinsky’s face, giving him a perfectly clear and startling look at himself.

“God damn,” Kavinsky muttered. “I’m like the nega-me, or the flip side from Ronan.” He examined the silvery shadow of scruff on his jaw, which was also coming in white. “I’m gonna look like fucking Santa Claus.”

Jin withdrew his phone and typed out a new message: _you swear too much_

“Okay,” Kavinsky agreed. “But you don’t swear at all so I gotta make up the difference.”

_Is that also why you never shut up?_

Kavinsky laughed and waved a finger at Jin. “Exactly.”

His good humor faded quickly, replaced by the realization that his body – his life – had irrevocably changed. He was no longer in control of his narrative. According to the people who worked at this institution, whatever it was, he belonged to Seondeok. The imbalance of power burned, twisted the ugly, grasping impulses that lurked at the core of him. If he couldn’t be the master of his life then at least he could be the master of Prokopenko’s.

“Jin,” his tone was cold, authoritative. “Unlock the case. It’s time to wake sleeping beauty.”

It wasn’t his imagination that Jin practically _leaped_ to do as he asked, his hands shaking as he retrieved the key from the lanyard he wore around his neck. The lock clicked open and Jin reverently pried the lid off the case. Kavinsky pushed the wheelchair forward and leaned his forearms on the edge of the case, staring down at his creation. Jin watched him, his hands hanging loose at his side like he was ready to intervene at a moment’s notice, if needed. Kavinsky gave him a devious smile and winked. Then he turned his attention back to Prokopenko.

He had no idea if this would work.

“Okay you little shit,” he muttered, too quiet for Jin to hear him, “wakey-wakey.” He leaned into the case, fingertips pressed to the plastic, and inhaled, surprised that Proko still smelled vaguely like weed and beer and bonfire smoke.

He remembered the night when he dreamed Proko. He remembered the trauma that had preceded it. For a moment he let the regret fill him up, and the hope, too.

His lips, thin and chapped, pressed against Proko’s mouth. He still tasted like blood and peach schnapps.

It was just like a fucking fairy tale: one kiss and Proko’s eyes blinked open, one kiss and Proko was a real boy all over again.

“K?” _His voice_ … god, he sounded exactly the same. “What’s- where-” Proko’s wide eyes darted from side to side, panicked. Just like the first time. He tried to sit up and immediately went back down, clutching his head. “It hurts!” he gasped, tears welling up. “Oh god, my head… what happened?”

Jin stepped in, gently pushing Kavinsky back. It was for the best because at the moment Kavinsky felt like he had been struck dumb, just like Jin.

Proko continued to moan and complain about his head while Jin checked him over. The doctor looked happy, for once. Well, not happy, but it was like someone had turned on the light behind his eyes. He finished his brief examination of Proko and sent a text, probably to Seondeok.

“K…” Proko sounded like he was about to bawl. “What’s going on? Are we at the hospital? I don’t feel good.” With Jin’s assistance he was able to sit up but he was unsteady, as uncoordinated and precarious as a newly hatched bird. “Why are you in a wheelchair? Were we in another accident?” He tried to reach out for Kavinsky and nearly toppled out of the case. Jin made panicked gestures at him, trying to get him to stay still and calm down. But once Prokopenko worked himself into an agitated state there was only one person who could calm him.

“Jin,” Kavinsky’s voice sounded hollow in his ears, like he was hearing a recording of himself. “Bring him over here. He’s not gonna chill out until he knows I’m okay.”

Jin didn’t look pleased by this but he did as Kavinsky asked, lifting Proko from the case and perching him on Kavinsky’s lap.

Proko wasn’t huge, he had always been slight, just like Kavinsky, but he had lost none of his mass during his hibernation and his weight was almost too much for Kavinsky’s weakened, wasted frame to bear.

“Jesus, you’re heavy,” Kavinsky complained as he let Proko lean against him. “Seriously, man, I can’t breathe.”

Proko didn’t seem to care. He tried to rest his head on K’s bony shoulder, tried to burrow in like a cat.

“Okay, this is impossible,” Kavinsky grunted, one skinny arm wrapped awkwardly around Proko’s shoulders. “Jin, get him off me. Proko, c’mon, let go. It’s okay, alright? We’re okay.”

Proko whined miserably but he finally relented, letting Jin pick him up again. Reinforcements arrived, two young men in scrubs with surgical masks obscuring their features. One of the men helped Jin settle Proko onto a gurney while the other took charge of Kavinsky, pushing him out of the room.

Jin kept one hand on Proko’s shoulder, a poor form of restraint. Proko kept twisting around to keep an eye on Kavinsky, his bruised face anxious, body shaking from stress. Kavinsky didn’t have any words to comfort him with. Verbal comfort had never been his forte. And anyways, Proko was there to provide comfort for _him_ , not the other way around.

They arrived back at Kavinsky’s room and Jin motioned for the other men to get Kavinsky back into his bed. He resented their help and straight up refused to be hooked up to the machines again. Jin was too preoccupied with Proko to force the issue. He had the other men run off to bring more medical supplies and then it was just the three of them. It felt like a crowd.

“What now?” Kavinsky asked.

Proko looked at him expectantly. It was such a dreamed thing look. _Waiting for input_. Jin’s eyes bounced back and forth between them, his forehead creased. He tapped at his phone and a voice emanated from it, crisp with a faintly British accent.

“ _Your friend needs medication and rest. He should start healing normally. In the meantime you’ll need to start physical therapy_.”

“Great,” Kavinsky mumbled.

“ _The sooner your body recovers, the sooner you can begin working with Mr. Gray_ ,” the voice said.

“Hey, how are you doing that?” K asked. Jin wasn’t typing anymore. It was almost like the phone was reading his thoughts.

“ _Science_ ,” said the voice.

“Man, what the fuck? You’ve been making me read messages all this time!” Kavinsky complained.

Jin didn’t reply but his mouth twitched in a silent laugh.

Proko surprised them both when he reached out and touched the scars on Jin’s neck. Jin didn’t move or push him away but his eyes got huge. Proko seemed fascinated by the scarring, carefully tracing the slashes.

“What happened?” Proko asked, one hand cupping the side of Jin’s neck in a gesture that was far too intimate for K’s taste.

Jin didn’t answer but he didn’t pull away. He looked almost mesmerized.

“Enough with the eye fucking,” K snapped, startling Proko, who blushed and looked away from Jin. Jin, very pointedly, didn’t take his eyes off Proko as he got back to work.

Kavinsky leaned back on his pillows and closed his eyes, a tension headache already building. Maybe waking Prokopenko wasn’t such a great idea after all.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NSFW: contain sexual content. TW for dubcon, suicidal thoughts, implied self-harm

_“What did you think was going to happen?”_

_Kavinsky didn’t flinch even though it felt like he had been sucker punched. He stared, his heart in freefall, watching as the boy he had spent so long wanting_ _told him, “It was never going to be you and me.”_

Kavinsky jerked awake. His pulse was racing and he was covered in sweat. He tried sitting up but his left arm was pinned and in his disoriented state Kavinsky could only think _restraints_. Which did nothing to alleviate his panic.

But it was only Prokopenko curled up next to him, hugging his arm. At some point Kavinsky’s arm had gone numb and he couldn’t feel it at all. Proko’s body was warm and Kavinsky gave into the comfort of having someone close, even if it wasn’t the person he wanted.

In his natural sleep state Prokopenko was sweet and soft, his breath puffing out against Kavinsky’s shoulder, his soft hair mussed and falling over his forehead and eyelids. He had a false angel air that was belied by his tattoos and piercings, the telltale scars, and the hickey on his neck that had never healed, just like the injuries Proko had sustained in his accident. Kavinsky pressed two fingers over the hickey, felt Proko’s steady pulse. A little over a year ago he had fucked Proko against the Mitsubishi and sucked fresh marks onto his throat. They had been drunk and high, sweaty and careless in the miserable Henrietta heat. It felt like it had been yesterday. Proko, Rip Van Wrinkle that he was, looked unchanged while Kavinsky was a ghost of himself. He suspected karma was having a laugh at him, reversing their roles.

The room was dim and the lack of clocks meant it could be any time or no time. Kavinsky tugged his arm out of Proko’s grasp and tried not to move as the pins and needles sensation of nerves coming to life danced up his arm. Proko shifted in his sleep, his arm sliding across Kavinsky’s chest. Cuddles were not something that Kavinsky was used to as they had rarely factored into his life before. Before life with Prokopenko had been school, racing, and parties, their nights spent tangled together or with other partners. Weekends were for burning and crashing. But this wasn’t Henrietta, it wasn’t Aglionby. Without their usual pursuits and stimulants who were they? What were they?

Kavinsky’s mind was hungry for a chemical escape, a fix, even though his body no longer craved it. He had reattached the morphine drip and now thumbed the button to release more of the drug into his blood stream. This was only a temporary solution; Jin would discover it the next time he came by to do checkups and he would confiscate it. Kavinsky wondered if he asked for cigarettes if Jin would get him a pack. This place was worse than prison, locked down with no inmates or guards to trade favors for the things he needed. At least he had Prokopenko.

He nudged Proko’s shoulder, pinched his arm until Proko opened his eyes. The look on his face was one of sleepy befuddlement.

“What?” Proko asked. He tugged the blanket up over his chest, moving around to get more comfortable; the hospitable beds weren’t made to sleep two but during the night Proko had moved over to sleep with Kavinsky.

  
“Want to fuck?” Kavinsky asked.

Proko yawned. “Right now?” He was acting like Kavinsky had asked if he wanted to go grab a pizza or watch a movie.

“Do you have something better to do?” Kavinsky shifted so they were facing each other, knees brushing. He reached for Proko’s hand – still banged up from the crash – and pressed their palms together.

Proko yawned again and bumped his forehead against Kavinsky’s. He was smiling lazily, the bruises around his eyes making him look more punkish than usual. “You think you can get it up?”

“That’s never been a problem,” Kavinsky replied but truthfully he was a little worried. He’d been unconscious for a year, his body slipping out of his control and weakening day by day. “But you’ll have to do all the work, I can barely move around.”

“Awww.” Proko pretended to pout, a small grin on his lips. “I’ll take care of you, K.”

Kavinsky pinched him again and kissed him. Kissing was something Proko always enjoyed, though Kavinsky couldn’t remember anything Proko _didn’t_ like. Kavinsky could do without it; in his more volatile moods he would demand to be taken without the foreplay and Proko would bow out and let someone else step it. Proko never seemed to mind, not that Kavinsky would have noticed while getting fucked senseless.

Prokopenko kissed back slow and deep, like he could do this for hours, his hands roaming, pushing up under Kavinsky’s clothes to touch bare skin. Kavinsky gripped the sheets, trying to stay as still as possible.

“You’re so skinny,” Proko murmured, his fingers trailing down Kavinsky’s ribcage. He pressed on Kavinsky’s stomach, ran his thumb over the sharp curve of his hipbone. “Don’t we need doctor approval before we do this?”

Kavinsky laughed. “Sure. Let’s just page Dr. Jin right now and ask if we can bone. Pretty sure the answer would be _no way in hell_. That guy totally has a hard on for you and a hate on for me.”

Proko frowned but didn’t stop his attentions. He sucked on Kavinsky’s neck, giving him a matching hickey, and rubbed the heel of his hand against Kavinsky’s stiffening cock.

“Mmm,” Kavinsky sighed. “That’s it.”

Proko slipped his hand down the front of Kavinsky’s hospital pants and wrapped his fingers around Kavinsky’s cock, tightening his grip until it was almost painful, and began roughly jerking Kavinsky off. “You still like it like this?” he asked.

Kavinsky nodded, biting his lip. “Yeah… just like… oh fuck, keep doing that with your thumb…” He wanted to thrust his hips forward but even that felt like too much effort. “Ahh… shit!”

Prokopenko had, over time, become very proficient at finding ways to drive Kavinsky wild; Kavinsky didn’t know if it was a natural talent or an unintentional add-on. Either way it was an incredible gift. They hadn’t even been at it long and he knew he wasn’t going to last, which was disappointing. Proko seemed to divine the same thing; he gripped the base of Kavinsky’s cock and leaned in to kiss him.

“What do you want, K?” Proko grinned at him, fully awake, totally sober. “Can you hold out long enough for me to ride you or do you wanna cum in my mouth?”

Kavinsky blinked. He couldn’t remember ever having such a lucid conversation about sex, especially not _during_ sex. For the first time he wondered if he should feel guilty about fucking with Prokopenko, the dude sounded like some kind of sexbot instead of what Kavinsky was used to, both of them high and moaning and calling out in broken, incoherent gasps.

“What do you want?” Kavinsky asked. He felt like he was about to shoot off at any moment, his chest rising and falling rapidly, his body aching for release.

Proko shrugged and loosened his hold. His hand traveled teasing, barely there passes over the length of Kavinsky’s cock. “It never mattered before, did it?”

“It did!” Kavinsky protested. Of course it did.

Proko thought about that and shook his head. “Naw. I’ve always wanted what you want.” He pushed two sticky fingers into his mouth, sucking them in to the knuckle. He pulled them back out with a _pop_ and stared at Kavinsky. “You wanted that.”

The implications made Kavinsky go cold. A year ago he had been beyond caring about anything, he hadn’t noticed the signs because life was just a fucked up blur. Now he couldn’t stop noticing and thinking.

Proko pulled Kavinsky’s pants down to his knees and pushed his legs apart before grabbing Kavinsky’s hips and yanking them up. Kavinsky gasped when Proko squeezed too hard, his cock twitching against his stomach.

“Proko…” he couldn’t decide if he should stop this or let it keep going. It felt amazing, to be manhandled, to have Proko responding to his every impulse without him having to say a word. But if he was in control then Proko… “Do you want to do this?” he asked again.

“I don’t… know.” Proko touched Kavinsky, his fingers circling and pressing in just a fraction, enough that Kavinsky knew in moments he wouldn’t be able to think. The fact that Prokopenko was doing this to him instead of the other way around didn’t assuage the guilt.

“Stop.” Kavinsky grabbed Proko’s wrist and pushed his hand away. Prokopenko sat back on his heels looking confused.

“I don’t understand,” Proko whined. He placed his hand to his chest, and then gripped his head. “I can still _feel_ what you want, K. I feel how bad you want me to fuck you. And you… you want me to hurt you, too.” He curled up at the end of the bed like a pill bug and made a pained noise. “I don’t understand. Why does it feel like this?”

“Hey,” Kavinsky said softly. “It’s okay. I’m not going to make you hurt me, Proko. I’ll take care of this.” His cock was still hard and painful, his body burning and needy. “Can you go sit out in the hall, babe? Or go for a stroll? That way you won’t have to feel it.”

Proko got up, looking relieved but also conflicted. “I don’t want you to hurt. I want to make you feel better.”

“Go on,” Kavinsky said, looking away, studying the wall. “Find Jin. Maybe he’ll give you Jell-O. That’s what they give you at hospitals, right?” He kept his gaze fixed on the wall until he heard the door open and close, followed by the shuffle of Prokopenko’s retreating steps.

“Fuck my life,” Kavinsky groaned. He proceeded to get off, being too rough with himself and biting the inside of his cheek over and over until it bled. Proko was right, he wanted to hurt and be hurt and it felt like that still wouldn’t be enough to atone for how he had fucked up. The worst part was that he was still teetering like a broken compass towards keeping things the way they were.

He threw the tissues in the trash and pulled the blankets up around his shoulders, shivering. The morphine he had taken was finally having an effect, drawing him into numb sleep. He had restless dreams of being caught in a maze. Briars and barbed wire made up the walls and his skin soon became scored with wounds. He got lost and turned around again and again but he kept going, searching for the center. After an eternity of wandering he found it but there was no prize and the walls began to close in. In his nightmare he screamed and tried to climb the walls, scraping the skin from his hands, leaving patches of it on the thorns and wires. By the time the walls engulfed him he was a mass of exposed muscle, red and bleeding. The vanishing patch of sky became a giant blue eye. The eye winked at him and then it was darkness and pain.

When he woke up Mr. Gray was there, sitting on Prokopenko’s bed, reading from a slim hardback volume. He glanced up and when he saw that Kavinsky was awake he slipped a bookmark between the pages and closed the book. Kavinsky tried to read the title but it wasn’t in English or any of the other languages he knew.

“You still look like shit,” Mr. Gray said, “but perhaps a bit more human.”

Kavinsky rolled his eyes and reached up to scratch his shorn scalp. He was never getting used to the sensation.

“Man, we both know I’m not human,” Kavinsky muttered.

“Oh, I’m sorry, should I have said ‘superhuman’ or ‘semi-magical entity’?”

Kavinsky didn’t reply. He hadn’t felt this awful – physically or mentally – since Jersey.

“I don’t think I deserve to be human. I don’t deserve to be alive. They should have let me die.” The last several days had been a hazy distraction of pain and meds and Prokopenko but now he was clearheaded and he had nowhere to hide from the truth. He hated himself and couldn’t see the point in living.

Mr. Gray sat forward, leaning his elbows on his knees, his chin resting on the laced fingers of his hands. “This is unexpected. I came to talk to you about work, I didn’t think I’d be dealing with an existential crisis.”

“So walk away,” Kavinsky replied dully. “Fuck off. I’m not your problem.”

“Well…” Mr. Gray pulled a face like he was thinking of something unpleasant. “Technically you are. We’re partners so if I think you’re a danger to yourself then I have to do what I can to protect you. Are you a danger to yourself?”

Kavinsky shrugged. “I can’t stay here. I can’t be around Prokopenko.”

Mr. Gray leaned forward even more. “Did something happen?”

“Ugh…” Kavinsky slouched against his pillows and stared at the ceiling. “Yeah, something happened. I realized that I’ve been controlling him since I dreamed him. But subtle, neither of us really knew it. He felt what I wanted and he did it, no matter what it was. I never had to say what I wanted because he knew and I didn’t question it. He didn’t know that wasn’t normal and I was always too fucked up to realize… do you get what I’m saying?”

Mr. Gray kept his mouth shut and Kavinsky continued. “He didn’t have a choice because he was being manipulated on this emotional or, or psychological level. I don’t even know how I fucking pulled that off.”

They were quiet, Mr. Gray deep in thought, Kavinsky internally castigating himself anew.

“When you dreamed him,” Mr. Gray began, “what were you thinking, what did you want?”

Kavinsky tried to remember. It had been the second, no third, worst moment of his life, watching Prokopenko bleed out in the wreckage, the car crushed against the rocks after Proko had lost control, went through the guard rail, and plummeted to his death. Kavinsky had gone back later with Niall to retrieve the body and torch the car. The original Ilya Prokopenko was buried in St. Agnes in a plot marked only by a regularly replaced bottle of vodka. When Niall had coached him through the dreaming process Kavinsky hadn’t been in his right mind. All he could think was that he had lost his best friend and it was his fault. He thought of the bond they shared, how they knew each other so well it was like their brains were connected…

“Son of bitch!” Kavinsky hissed. “That shitty fucking ley line I swear to God…”

“What?” Mr. Gray sat up straight, looking prepared to do something if Kavinsky made the wrong move.

Kavinsky growled and punched the mattress a few times. “The ley line. Dreamers draw power from it to manifest objects. But, as Niall was teaching me, the ley line is very literal. When I dreamed Proko, I was thinking of how close we were and I wanted that to be the same. But my thoughts were something like ‘so close it’s like we have matching brainwaves.’ So the ley line gave us that connection but apparently it was set as a feedback loop, Proko picking up on what I wanted and giving it back to me. I never felt what he wanted.”

Kavinsky went to yank at his hair but it was gone. He scratched his nails over his scalp instead but it wasn’t nearly as satisfying.

“That’s…,” Mr. Gray’s voice trailed off, words failing him. He got up and moved over to Kavinsky’s bed and perched on the edge. “I’m sorry that happened, Joseph, but it sounds like an honest mistake. You were an amateur trying something godlike.” He shook his head. “Listen, you can’t continue to beat yourself up about it. You’ve realized what happened and you stopped using that connection to your advantage. That’s all you can do.”

“I can’t fix it, though,” Kavinsky groaned. “I can’t be around him again.” It felt like a weight was crushing his chest, making it hard to breath. “He’s my best friend,” Kavinsky whispered.

“So change.” Mr. Gray said it like it was the simplest thing in the world. “Start wanting something else, someone else. When you two have had time apart you can return and start over. Trust me. I firmly believe in second chances.”

“Oh yeah?” Kavinsky crossed his arms over his chest and stared at Mr. Gray. “When did you get yours?”

Mr. Gray smiled, a bittersweet curve of his lips that softened his face. “That,” he said quietly, “is a tale for the road.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is going to be a really long fic, probably updated twice a month. More tags/content warnings to follow. At this point in time I am not planning on explicit content but that may change. This story, for the most part, is not about any specific romantic relationships, it's about exploring what happens to Joseph Kavinsky after the events of the Raven Cycle, because, of course, he didn't really die.
> 
> You can find me on tumblr @dkafterdark


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